A “Homeland” Conspiracy Theory

Initially, I didn’t want to get too involved in the Great “Homeland” Plausibility War of December 3, 2012, which was triggered by Sunday night’s episode, “Broken Hearts.” But to sum up the overall mood of the TV-sphere, which has been bubbling on Twitter: Alan Sepinwall liked the emotional aspects of the episode, but found the plot ridiculous. Todd VanDerWerff found the plot ridiculous, but didn’t mind! Willa Paskin also found the plot ridiculous and it is driving her around the bend.

Yet I couldn’t help getting drawn in, because after some consideration, I found that I’d stumbled upon a solution—which is to say I developed a completely insane theory that explains everything. I am also prepared to defend my crazy theory at all costs, because this show is turning me into Carrie Mathison. Enough preamble. The theory is this: Nicholas Brody is faking it. He plotted with Abu Nazir to have Carrie kidnapped, so that Brody could “save” her, thus ensuring her loyalty and manipulating her into concealing their crimes (which she did, after all: she didn’t tell her bosses about the scheme to kill the Vice-President.) All that face-acting Damian Lewis was doing, with the yelling and the screaming into Skype—a notable departure from the subtlety of Lewis’s earlier performance? He knew Carrie was listening. It was an act.

Carrie Mathison is clearly in love with Brody. Brody has feelings for her, too, but he’s still capable of manipulating her (which is the same thing she’s doing to him, after all, in the name of the C.I.A.—calming him down with sex, holding his hand to reassure him.) When Nazir kidnapped Brody, during that mysterious prayer confab a few weeks back, the two came up with a plan. I’m not sure what that plan is, beyond killing the Vice-President, but it seems to involve messing with Carrie’s head—even more than she’s already been messed with.

When you think about it, my theory explains much that felt strange about “Broken Hearts.” It explains why Brody was going so over-the-top bonkers. It explains why Nazir didn’t walk away with his cell phone, to explain the pacemaker plan out of earshot of the C.I.A. operative he’d kidnapped. My theory also explains why Nazir was so willing to let Carrie go, even before Brody had given him the code: they’d scripted that element, to make it clear that Brody was motivated by love. The twist would match up perfectly with the show’s thematic fascination with behavior as performance, which goes back to Season One, when Carrie watched Brody strip and suffer on her monitors as if he were some especially juicy episode of Real World: The Patriot Act.

I’m sure you can all come up with objections to my theory—or to the episode itself—including the fact that it’s odd that no one was tapping Brody’s phone or taping his meeting with the Veep. (There must be a mole in the C.I.A., maybe Galvez, maybe Chris Brody, who will never finish that card game.) On Twitter, Myles McNutt pointed out to me that Brody and Nazir kept talking on the phone after Carrie was out of earshot, when Nazir was assuring him that Carrie was free—which may poke a major hole in my theory. I’ve talked myself into the idea that this would be something Brody would want to know, even if he were in on a plot, but it raises doubts.

Now, it would certainly be a depressing prospect to see Carrie betrayed. But it makes sense that there could be a fresh twist before the season ends. A planned kidnapping is more interesting than the notion that Brody would freak because he loves Carrie so much—in fact, that seems like something Carrie would come up with in her own private cache of fan fiction.

If my theory is true, the season ends when Carrie gets wise, then kills Brody. It would be like the great Season Two finale of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” when Buffy killed her evil boyfriend, Angel. (Any subtle homage to “Buffy” is O.K. with me.) A dramatic ending to the Brody/Mathison romance, but one with complexity and resonance—and with the added benefit of presenting the show with a clean slate for Season Three. Two weeks and we’ll know if I was right. Until then, you can find me here in my office at Condé Nast, stringing yarn between pushpins.

Photograph: 20th Century Fox.

Sign up for the daily newsletter.Sign up for the daily newsletter: the best of The New Yorker every day.